
SAN 14 WW 



* CRISES IN LIFE. .* 



And 



& How to Meet Them* & 



A Contribution to Optimistic 
Literature* 



<£ By J* 

A, O. COSSAR, 



f 






kA^jfc- cder^ir^ her**-. 



Crises in Life, 



Or 



How t<> AXa^tet* Diificmltiee;, Escape Desspoml- 
encjr and. Keep on the Cheerful 

Pi'Ogre-ssive Side oiLiie. 



t # * ^ 

1 , 



AfOTCOSSAR. 



***■*• 



' 'It is more brave to live than to die." 

— BULWER LYTTON. 

"That which is best in me comes from 
within. "— Leland. 



Springfield, Missouri, 

Roberts Printing Co,, Publishers. 

1900. 



1 



ONE COPY RECflVEB. 



L.i brary ot" CongroG.\«; 



14 1301 

Copyright entry 



*V 0**3, if &0 



« t 



SECOND COPY 



# x *S* 



Copyrighted 1900. 

By A. O. COSSAR. 

All Rights Reserved. 



j» CONTENTS. j» 
CHAPTER f. 

Worn Out Paths - - - - \2. 

Exhausted States - - - 12—14 

Development of New Desires - - 15 — 17 

Christ's Experience ... 17 — 20 
The Latent Resources and Indestructability of the 

Human Mind - 20—24 

Perennial Youth of the Soul - - - 24—25 
Concentrative Thinking and the Super-conscious 

Mind 25—29 

CHAPTER 2, 

Paths that Lead to Daylight . - - 3h 

Benevolent Feeling - 34 

Thinking Ahead 35 

Practical Thinking - 39 

Potency of Belief - 40 

Thoughts to Shun - 42 

Own Achievements 44 

Faith and Self-reliance - 45 

The Sphere of Ideals - 47 

Subjective and Objective - 48 



CHAPTER 3. 

Long Trodden Paths - 52, 

Sleeping ----- 57 

Drinking - 60 

Eating - - - - 64 

Sexual Desire _ - _ _ D g 

Intellectual Activity 72 

Religion - 76 

Natural Affections 82 



DEDICATION. 

This book is dedicated to all men and women, who expe- 
rience in any measure, collapse of the interest and happiness 
of life. 

Its object is, to suggest to you, pleasant states of mind 
and pleasant experiences, that lie beyond the limits of inher- 
ited and popular beliefs. 

To you it will prove a welcome messenger and friend, 
because it will awaken hope, arouse self-confidence and stim- 
ulate to high endeavor. THE AUTHOR. 



•** PREFACE. & 

The book of Ecclesiastes, supposed to have 
been written by King Solomon, discusses the 
same question as this little book. The author 
begins by asking "what profit a man hath in 
all his labor wherein he laboreth under the 
sun?" Then answers, "All things are full of 
weariness, and all is vanity!" and proceeds 
through the whole course of the work to sus- 
tain his assertions by evidence gathered from 
universal experience. He asserts that he 
himself exhausted all the intellectual and 
physical resources of human pleasure, grati- 
fied every desire, satisfied every wish, and in 
the end found his opening generalization cor- 
rect. He confesses again and again that the 
search for happines of some extraordinary 
kind or from some extraordinary source can 



9 CRISES IN LIFE. 

never be realized, and concludes that there is 
nothing better for a man than that he should 
"eat and drink and rejoice in his works 
all the days of his life." Which being 
interpreted in the light of the context, means 
that a man should find his happiness in the 
normal gratification of his desires, in the 
creations of his mind, in the fulfillment of or- 
dinary obligations and the recognition of God 
in it all. This conclusion is variously stated 
at different stages of the argument, but the 
author's mind remains steadfast to his pri- 
mary verdict. Not only the vanity of things 
acquired, but the thought of the unattained 
and unattainable was a perplexity and vexa- 
tion to his mind. Though wise, he fretted 
under the burden of ignorance, a negative 
prohpet of the knowledge yet to be revealed. 
I have been led by personal experience 
and observation of the lives of others, to be- 
lieve that a disenchanted state of mind is all 
too common. Weary, disheartened people are 



CRISES IN LIFE. 10 

found everywhere. The fashion has been to 
exhort them to look away from themselves 
for consolation and joy, but I believe that this 
advice is drawn from an erroneous theory 
of the human mind. The power resides with- 
in that must create the conditions of relief. 
There can be little enduring happiness with- 
out self esteem, and to possess that in exhil- 
arating quantity, I must believe in the im- 
mense wealth of possibility locked up in the 
treasury of my own soul; a latent wealth 
which is awakened to life by affirmation, faith 
and appeal. 

I purpose that this book shall be found not 
only intelligent but helpful to all in every 
stage of life, but particularly to those who 
have used up the motives and aims with 
which they started out, and have not been 
able to find othersof sufficient vitality tore-in- 
spire the mind. With many, their life's work 
is done sooner than they anticipated; they have 
not grown old as rapidly as they expected; they 



11 CRISES IN LIFE. 

find that they will have ample time to begin 
and live life over again; but how and where to 
begin they known not. It is not only knowl- 
edge at such times that is lacking but some- 
times faith and courage as well. This book 
will keep such persons from dropping down 
disheartened among the discomforts and in- 
utilties of old age. I have treated this subject 
in a theoretic rather than an historic manner, 
because this method seems best suited to the 
purpose. Sufficient facts, however, will be 
found scattered throughout to unite experi- 
ence with theory and history with philoso- 
phy. Some of the ideas and arguments are 
based on a new psychology which recognizes 
the duality of the human mind. 

Ideas will also be found which may not be 
accounted philosophically or theoretically 
orthodox, but no one will deny me the right 
of liberty of thought. 

A. O. Cossar. 
Springfield, Mo., Oct, 1, 1900. 



CHAPTER L 

Worn Out Paths* 

There is no human life which has not in 
time become exhausted of interest. The ob- 
jects of affection may have perished, ambi- 
tions may have been fulfilled or disappointed, 
the ordinary resources of human nature may 
have all been fathomed. When this ex- 
hausted stage has been reached, the mind 
casts about for other means of sustaining 
interest. Passion soon runs its course, and 
all the surface possibilities of human life are 
soon used up. In turn, ail our natural affec- 
tions expand and find gratification, our intel- 
lectual and moral faculties develop and are 
exercised, our physical powers mature and 
their uses and limits are ascertained. 

When all constitutional powers have been 
successfully unfolded and all the more ob- 
trusive needs and desires gratified; what 
remains to engage the interest of the mind? 



13 CRISES IN LIFE. 

The pleasures attending exercise, home, 
friends, religion, business, property, honor 
and pursuit, are all in turn realized, but in 
the end they all become fatiguing, a longer or 
shorter pause may ensue when body and 
mind revel in their own riches and in the 
things which delight and gratify, but the day 
continues to creep nearer and nearer when 
weariness at length overtakes both body and 
mind. 

At such a juncture, "when all the bland- 
ishments of life are gone, " what can be done 
to re-enchant the mind? How has this pro- 
saic condition to be treated ? When the inter- 
est of life is worn out, how has it to be 
renewed? 

It is of no use saying that we should not 
lose our interest in religion, that our home 
ought to become increasingly dear to us, that 
business should be a perpetual source of 
enjoyment, that friendships, knowledge, etc, 
should furnish unfailing delight. The fact 
is, our nature seems incapable -of extracting 
happiness from monotony, pleasure from 
routine, or contentment from stagnation. 



CRISES IN LIFE. 14 

Continual use puts the mark of commonplace 
on all things, and even the dearest and sweet- 
est become insipid and ultimately stale. 

In this disenchanted state of life many 
resort to excess, hoping to further develop 
the capacity of their natural appetites, 
though these may have already been un- 
wound to the very hub. Excess leads only to 
pain. Development can never be backwards. 

This sense of mental surrender and weari- 
ness often yields a settled assumption that 
life's resources have all been spent; that leaf 
and blossom and bulb have all been consum- 
ed. A too hasty conclusion and an error that 
retards the development and progress of 
many a life; nay, but it is the error that leads 
to many a suicidal end.. That it is an error is 
undeniable, from the fact that we all know of 
minds that grow brighter and lives that grow 
larger as years increase. Man cannot de- 
mand more than the universe can supply; 
neither does the universe contain less than 
man shall need. Goldsmith speaks of those 
"who are born for the universe, but narrow 
their minds." 



15 CRISES IN LIFE. 

There is only one way of re-inspiring life 
after interest has begun to decline, and that 
is, by searching in your mental conscious- 
ness for some modest, unobtrusive, unde- 
veloped desire, seizing it and bringing it to 
the front. The mind is full of germinal de- 
sires which mature in procession, unless pur- 
posely suppressed. It is only the more ob- 
vious that first attract our attention and 
receive unfoldment. The finer and nobler 
remain to be developed later. All happiness 
consists in the unfoldment and exercise of our 
desires. In childhood, the physical; in youth^ 
the affectional; in adulthood, the intellect- 
ual. The spiritual and intuitional unfold at all 
periods of life, but chiefly, during years of 
maturity. On the intellectual and spiritual 
we must finally depend for true and perennial 
happiness. Exalted in their activity, these 
suggest immortality and divinity. 

Again I affirm that the only hope for the 
prolongation of happiness and the perpetua- 
tion of a complacent and felicitous state of 
mind, is to be found in giving external ex- 
pression to some latent, unborn desire. The 



CRISES IN LIFE. 10 

soul is packed full of these desires as a cap 
sule is of seeds. The Creator did not intend 
that human life should empty itself of inter- 
est. Select one of these latent desires, be a 
kindly nurse to it for awhile, and ere long it 
will fill your whole life with pleasure. 

You may first recognize it in the form of a 
thought, a feeling, a wish, a fancy, an ambi- 
tion, or it may be a long suspressed hope or 
purpose. It may be so large that you over- 
look it, or so vast that you ignore it as 
impracticable. The older it is, and the longer 
it has struggled for recognition the more 
pregnant with happiness it will be. I con- 
gratulate the reader who possesses among 
the embryonic contents of his soul, one or 
more long-pent-ujD desires. If they belong 
to the vulgar and brutish past keep them pent 
up still, but if they are of intellectual or moral 
origin, hasten to develop the bud into in- 
lioresence, fruition and beauty. Fear not, 
universal bounty shall respond to every 
appeal, and no courageous effort shall fail. 

Each time a new desire is permitted to 
mature in the mind and unfold in the life, in 



17 CRISES IN LIFE. 

New Testament language, you have been born 
again. This experience is a regeneration, 
for a new desire brings with it new thoughts, 
new feelings, new actions, and as a sure 
result, new external conditions. 

The Divine Teacher said: "Ye must be 
born anew." The reference here is to the 
necessity of spiritual regeneration, but the 
"must" is just as imperative in respect to 
man's intellectual necessity. He must be 
born anew many times during the course of 
his life, if he would escape the gloom and 
despondency that invade the mind when he 
arrives at those places where his spirit 
exclaims: "How stale, flat and unprofitable 
seem to me all the uses of this world. " 

Christ himself was born anew. When 
weary with the labor of building limestone 
dwellings he yielded to a masterful desire 
and went forth from Nazareth to serve his 
fellow countrymen and mankind at large in a 
higher and grander way. Building houses 
was a useful occupation and necessary to the 
economic wehfare of Galilee n society, but 
there came a day when this industry lost 



CRISES IN LIFE. 18 

interest for him; when laying stone walls, 
cutting sapling poles from the mountain side 
and gathering brush and sod from the valley, 
did not employ his entire capabilities. He 
was conscious of a residium of energy and 
intelligence; a power within, which was idle 
and could not be employed in his present call- 
ing. He felt that while he was earning bread 
his soul was famishing; and while he was 
erecting shelter for the bodies of men their 
souls, too, were famishing. Visions of uni- 
versal truth sweeping across his mind, and 
great impulses of love inundating his soul, he 
longed to shed the light of freedom on the 
world of Mankind. After many a silent com- 
fiict between the decaying old self and the 
expanding new self, under the influence of 
the Baptists' example, he finally arose and 
abandoned the rudimentary self forever. 

Every new birth is atttended with a strug- 
gle and conflict of soul; so it was with Christ. 
In the wilderness of Judea he wrestled with 
the evil one. The conflict was between the 
selfish and altruistic elements of the soul. 
His spirit strove within him for a clear and 



19 CRISES IN LIFE. 

triumphant conception of his new and exalted 
calling, a conception so high and clear that all 
the rising ambitions of his human nature 
would pale before it. The new desire at 
length conquered the old habit, and he enter- 
ed the larger sphere of service, prospered in 
it and became the matchless teacher, the gra- 
cious healer and glorious Savior. 

By and by even this sphere became too 
limited for his ideas and endowments. He 
was again greater than his calling. The body 
imposed too much restriction on the ac- 
tivity of his mind, geographic limits re- 
strained the expanding impulses of his love. 
Blind and unsympathetic men fiercely assail- 
ed him; he laid the body and natural condi- 
tions aside and assumed the freer spiritual 
state. On the morning of resurrection he 
was born again, and entered a realm beyond 
the range of human vision, to carry forward 
without impediment, the work of ever- 
lasting grace. This new resurrection birth 
was not attained without the agony of 
Gethsemane and the pangs of the cross. 

Here, in the experience of Christ, we have 



CRISES IN LIFE. 20 

a prophecy of the life of all men who would 
escape from their rudimentary selves and 
enter a new and ample sphere. 

Life amongst our present surroundings 
will in time cease to be interesting, or even 
tolerable, and that even in defiance of our 
wish that it should not be so; but Ave need 
not accept our disenchanted mental states as 
signs of approaching age and decay, or as a 
token that the time has come to withdraw 
from active life and surrender place and 
office for the purpose of creating opportunity 
for others. There are other unoccupied 
worlds to conquor lying all around us, and 
these weary, jaded states of mini are signs 
that we have outgrown the little world we 
are now in and must seek or create a new en- 
vironment. Advance to live, retreat to die. 

Merely to change the old surroundings 
and make a few local re-adjustments will not 
avail. "Ye must be born anew/' is the Cre- 
ator's will and the law of our mental consti- 
tution. The mrdady as well as the remedy 
lie in the mind. The summer flower blooms 
in the decaying stump of the forest tree. 



21 CRISES IN LIFE. 

Search your mind for a ripening desire, obey 
it, and it will bring you to glory, honor and 
immortality. 

Herbert Spencer in his first principles 
says: "Of all the bodily organ, the brain re- 
tains its youth and plasticity longest; contin- 
uing capable of renewing its tissue until the 
end of life. " This is scientific testimony 
which should have the effect of overthrowing 
all our inherited fancies and superstitions 
about mental decrepitude and decay. Mind 
itself defies the fingers of decay, and if the 
brain, which we regard as the organ of the 
mind, does also, uninterrupted development 
is not only possible to every one, but it is the 
eternal heritage of every one. The doctrine 
of continuous mental evolution must be the 
first in our creed and philosophy of life. No 
attempt to live will be successful without it. 
Progress must be conceived to be possible 
for ever and ever. There can be no terminus 
to psychical development. It is the one sub- 
lime and re-inspiring fact in all the bulk of 
human interests. Like shadows our desires 
must lengthen as our day declines. 



CRISES IN LIFE. 22 

All persons will not feel life exhausted of 
interest in the same degree. Those with the 
physical temperament preponderating, will 
always derive sufficient pleasure from ani- 
mal existence to render life both agreeable 
and desirable; but those with the mental tem- 
perament predominating, will at intervals 
feel the pressing need of having life renewed 
with the stimulus of novelty and accession. 
The happiness of the former is chiefly depen- 
dent on pleasurable sensations, that of the 
latter on ideas and emotions. The former 
will be more apt to look to the external world 
for the addition of new interest to life, and 
will be likely to find it there; while the latter, 
if following the example of the former, will 
find only disappointment, and turn sadly 
back on themselves. For them, new houses, 
new clothes, new carriages, new scenes, con- 
tribute little to scatter the gloom and clear 
the sky of clouds and dreariness. 

The ultimate hope, however, and the only 
hope of happiness for all persons of whatever 
temperament, is to be found in the elabora- 
tion of the spiritual soul. 



23 CRISES IN LIFE. 

No being endowed with a spiritual nature 
need for a moment despair. The spirit of 
man never grows old and never can. It is of 
God, and like God, endowed with perennial 
youth. The idea of the mind becoming aged 
is a fossil of the dead past, an unchristian 
and an unenlightened suggestion that has 
taken deep root in many minds. Before 
development can go on, before uninterrupted 
joy can be ours, we must free ourselves from 
this false and crippling thought. An intelli- 
gent conscious soul characterizes man, and 
we cannot think of it as destructible. It may 
deteriorate through sin, but it can never 
decay through age. 

Soul or mind dissolved, is and unthinkable 
proposition. The ancients believed the gods 
of their distinguished favorites to be 
immortal; sacred scripture addresses man on 
the assumption of his immortality; in our 
highest states of mind we perceive that we 
are immortal. We are the offspring of God, 
made in the image and likeness of God, 
immortal. In this truth reposes the hope of 
never-failing consolation. The human mind 



CRISES IN LIFE. 24 

articulating with the infinite mind, can never 
become totally bankrupt. It is happy only in 
the process of growing and sad only when 
growth is arrested. 

Youth is the ideal state of man; all shrink 
from age. In the ever-expanding soul, the 
beneficent Creator has secured to man the 
endless dream of youth. Strength and beau- 
ty, activity and grace, joy and loveliness, 
exuberance of life and freedom from care, 
are youth's secure possessions. 

The Hebrews said of Jehovah: "All things 
decay, but thou remainest the same, and 
of thy years there is no end;" and the 
Christians said of Christ, "The dew of thy 
youth is upon thee;" "Thou art the same yes- 
terday, to-day and forever." Man's highest 
conception of being is attributed to the God 
he adores; but he cannot attribute to his 
Deity what he does not perceive to be ideally 
possible to himself. If eternal youth is an 
attribute of God, it likewise is of man. Fun- 
dementally the two natures are one. 

Springtime is the youth of seasons, poetry 
the youth of intellect, love the youth of 



25 CRISES IN LIFE. 

affections, music of the arts, and divinity of 
humanity. We cannot demonstrate that per- 
petual youth is the immortal gift of God to 
man; we know it intuitionally. No one living 
in harmony with law and in communion with 
God ever feels old. The superconscious 
mind never grows old, for it never fails to be- 
hold in dreams and ecstatic visions the im- 
ages of youth and loveliness. Its companion- 
ships are among the immortals. Four hun- 
dred and seventy years before Christ, 
Euripides wrote: "Youth hath no fellow- 
ships with grief;" and 2,160 years afterwards 
Rochefoucauld wrote: "Youth is a prolonged 
intoxication." 

The first gives negative and the second 
positive testimony to the jocund quality of 
youth, and the silent intervening years pro- 
claim the attributes of youth unchanging. 
Youth never thinks of suicide, and if adults 
kept new desires before them they never 
would. 

Is there any faculty of the mind that can 
aid us in perpetuating the joys and trans- 
ports of the juvenile years of life? Is there 



CRISES IN LIFE. 26 

any use of the mind that can? Yes, there are 
two things can: First, intensive or concen- 
trative thinking; second, the recognition of 
the superconscious mind as distinct from the 
brain and the conscious mind. 

No one who reads this for the first time 
will understand it. It is a concept which 
must have time to ripen in the soul. 

Intensive or concentrative thinking gave 
you all the knowledge you now have and 
greater concentration will give you more. 
Increasing knowledge is increasing power and 
increasing power is the element in life that 
charms and infatuates us with it. 

It is the growing intensity of thinking 
that keeps the world young. Minds that 
have penetrated deeper than the rind of 
things, say that we are only yet investigat-- 
ing the marginal part of truth. 

Whether you approach the sacred script- 
ures or the book of nature, greater concentra- 
tion will open to you, new, larger and grander 
realms. They may seem vague and delusive 
at first, but will grow real as you find that 
others have knoweldge of them too. You will 



27 CRISES IN LIFE. 

learn by and by to classify and also make 
practical use of these deeper observations, 
and as you begin to do this, you will also be- 
gin to renew your youth. The super-con- 
scious mind is revealed in every successful 
effort of mental concentration. It is an all 
knowing and creative power of the mind. For- 
mal and superficial life is trivial to it. It looks 
out over the top and far beyond the range of 
the common place. With a keen moral in- 
sight it sees the impalpable kingdom of God 
ruling in the interior of things. It sees 
divine intelligence infusing all, and divine 
being, the hidden mystery, involving all. 

With the ordinary gaze we view a field, a 
forest, a village, a mountain, a lake, a green 
plain, and see nothing but human property, 
the products of human labor, market values 
and the like, and feel only a dreary 
interest in it all; but let us gaze on the same 
scene with a steadfast, facinated attention, 
gaze with the thought of God in the mind, 
and soon the material will fade into the spirit- 
ual and the natural into the preternatural. 
The air becomes radiant, objects become 



CRISES IN LIFE. 1:8 

transformed and the etherial world enfolds 
us round. 

With our objective vision we look upon a 
human community and see nothing but ener- 
gy manifesting in production, distribution, 
educational and governmental activity; or we 
see the individual members of society, some 
eagerly and some languidly, following their 
different inclinations and ambitions; but let 
us view society with the subjective vision and 
we behold an entirely different set of phe- 
nomena. 

The spiritual advances and the physical 
recedes; men's souls shine through their 
bodies; the secret promptings and stimulants 
to activity are clearly visible; the cumulative 
effect of vanished ages, the prophetic long- 
ing of ages yet to come, and the toil of 
universal laws is seen impressed on every 
object. 

An invisible intelligence is perceived to 
determine the evolution of events and a 
beneficent moral government to maintain 
order. Inanimate things around us appear 
as companionable souls in dress, with person- 



29 CRISES IN LIFE. 

al attributes of faces and fingers, senses, 
desires and speech. Human beings are seen 
to be great beyond their proudest thoughts. 
Blessed with powers and riches and oppor- 
tunities far in excess of their highest con- 
ception. Faith and knowledge alone seem to 
be wanting to enable man to realize his 
divinest dreams. 

When the spirit or thought or word of 
God has quickened into activity the unused 
powers of the superconscious mind, and dis- 
closed to our objective intelligence the wealth 
and grandeur of our inner being, we have 
entered the kingdom of God, the kingdom 
within, a realm where morbidity is unknown. 

When we cease to reason and draw con- 
clusions and shape the purposes of our lives 
on the false and discouraging assumption of 
our own weakness and worthlessness, a new 
epoch will have dawned upon our lives; and 
when we cease to believe that age and infirm- 
ity are necessary concomitants of human 
existence the dawn will begin to broaden and 
brighten into day. 

This is a theme which sooner or later com- 



CRISES IN LIFE. 30 

pels the attention of every mind. No writer 
omits the discussion of it; no generation fails 
to wrestle with it. and every age attempts to 
solve its problem anew. 



CHAPTER IL 

Paths that Lead to Daylight* 

The elixir of life is not contained in the 
waters of some hidden fountain, in the fruit 
of some mystic tree, in the air of some 
undiscovered clime, or in the subtile ingred- 
ients of some magical compound, but in the 
thoughts and suggestions of this book. 

Keep in mind the fact that there is a ten- 
dency to weariness in every human life, due 
to exhaustion of interest of both internal and 
external conditions, and that it is this weari- 
ness that I am by suggestion to cure. 

It is a wide-spread and dire affliction of 
the mind and calls for earnest treatment. 

The mind, like the body, has its attitudes 
and becomes fatigued when occupying one 
position for a prolonged period. Any one 



CRISES IN LIFE. 62 

who has long sustained an active state of 
mind and finds life growing monotonous, will 
experience relief and enjoyment from assum- 
ing a passive or receptive attitude. 

His relations being changed, fresh 
thoughts and experiences will occupy his 
mind, novel images crowd his imagination, 
unaccustomed sensations thrill his brain, a 
new color and complexion will be given to ail 
his surroundings, and his life, which had be- 
come barren of happiness, will become re-in- 
vested with genuine interest. 

To remain in either the active or passive 
state of mind too long, results in uneasiness, 
which at times augments to pain. 

In domestic affairs, if you have been the 
positive quality for years, resign for a while 
in favor of others. In church relations if you 
have hitherto been passive, become active. 
In business if you have been accustomed to 
assume all responsibility, shift a share of the 
burden to the shoulders of capable and trust- 
ed employes. They will enjoy it and you will 
enjoy it more. By this quiet and easy 
method of changing from the passive to the 



33 CRISES IN LIFE. 

active, and again from the active to the pas- 
sive, a person can be constantly varying or 
increasing the interest and enjoyment of his 
life. All relations of life can be treated in 
this way. 

The elixir of human life traced to its 
source is contained in the wealth and versa- 
tility of the soul itself. The riches of the 
human mind are immense, and articulated as 
it is with the infinite mind, its resources are 
inexhaustible. 

When from your life all pleasure has 
departed and even the little remaining inter- 
est is being drained away, consider this as a 
sign that you have capacity for a wider 
sphere of activity. Your mind would not be 
discontented with existing conditions unless 
it had the secret perception of other condi- 
tions, and it would not have the perceptive 
wish of other conditions, unless it had also 
the capacity to create them. Life cannot pos- 
sibly be exhausted of its opportunities. Every 
state of disenchantment leads directly, for 
him who has knowledge, to a state of re- 
enchantment. The soul, knowing her union 



CRISES IN LIFE. 34 

with the infinite, "smiles at the drawn dagger 
and defies its point." To him who knows 
the wealth of his own being, all the threats of 
worn-out circumstances are but playthings. 
To change your position in space and sur- 
round yourself with unfamiliar objects, will 
avail nothing to import new interest into 
your life, unless there is also a change in 
your mental states and outlook. Forward 
and not backward, motion and not stagnation, 
are watchwords of happiness. 
Benevolent Feeling. 
If you have hitherto been governed in 
your life by selfish motives, exchange them 
for kindly benevolent motives and observe 
what a large addition to your happiness this 
will make. While at work you will think 
of the comfort and happiness of those who 
partake of the results of your labor, and not 
alone of profit or pay. You will think of the 
economic welfare of society; and yourself as a 
contributor thereto. Whatever your occupa- 
tion in life, mercantile, industrial, profession- 
al, the benevolent motive can be introduced 
with transforming and enlivening effect. All 



35 CRISES IN LIFE. 

your faculties will experience its stimulating 
influence, your friends will multiply, and the 
interest of your life will reach a point never 
attained before. A generous instinct en- 
larges the life as well as the mind, and it is 
this enlarging and growing of the personal 
and circumstantial self that ensures pro- 
gressive happiness. There is no permanent 
escape from melancholy, but by way of 
psychical development, accompanied by in- 
creasing facility in the production of benefi- 
cent effects. To retain in life the flavor of true 
felicity, self must grow, and the only way in 
which self can mulitply self is along the line 
of sympathetic aggregation. "The human 
mind finds nowhere shelter, but in human 

kind/' 

Thinking Ahead* 

Many from whose life the charm of 
existence is slowly evaporating are in the 
habit of dwelling on the past — past exper- 
iences, past acquaintances, past situations, 
past exploits, claim their thoughts. Their 
mental activity is retrospective rather than 
prospective. 



CRISES IN LIFE. 36 

This is a waste of time and a waste of 
cereberal energy; but more, and worse, it is 
inviting and actually promoting a stagnation 
of the mental powers. It may be pleasant to 
sit in an easy chair or lie in bed and let the 
thoughts, like a pack of ill-handled hounds, 
run along on the back track. The game will 
never be started much less bagged by such 
easy indulgence. Call the thoughts in and 
set them resolutely to face the future, and 
keep them always forward bent. 

The human mind delights in exploration; 
its chief functions, indeed, is to move on 
ahead and open up the unbroken path of the 
future. In its essential character it is crea- 
tive. It is the pathfinder disclosing the 
countless opportunities and resources that 
lie before us. There is no perplexing situa- 
tion, no dense blockade, no threatening com- 
bination of adverse circumstances, but what 
the mind, if kept steadily and concentratedly 
bent on with the purpose of discovering a 
way out, wih triumphantly overcome. 

The failure to keep the mind directed 
towards the future is almost sure to result in 



Si CRISES IN LJFE. 

the growth of some species of unhappiness; 
for left to itself, it is liable to brood over past 
wrongs, past failures, past sins or past mis- 
fortunes, and of such ruminating habits there 
can only be one consequence. It is in this way 
that morbid dispositions are developed, that 
enmity and ill-will become rooted in the 
heart, that disappointment grows into dis- 
couragement, and discouragement terminates 
in collapse. 

It requires some attention and effort to 
keep the mind from reverting to its former 
habits, for motion having been once set up in 
a given direction, is sure to continue in that 
direction until diverted by some more potent 
force. The more potent force is the human will 
which turns the current of thought and com- 
pels it to flow onward instead of backward. 

Such a revolution in your thinking will 
immediately work a change in your life. In 
every department of your life a transforma- 
tion will take place. Your spirits will be 
more cheerful, your health and morals will 
improve, and your business will prosper. 
You will become more magnetic and attrac- 



CRISES IN LIFE. 38 

tive to others and enjoy life a hundred fold 
more. 

Such a change in the habit of your think- 
ing is certain, in the very nature of things, to 
work a favorable change in your experience. 
You will be so full of plans and enterprises 
that you will have no more wasted time. All 
you undertake will succeed, because you 
have carefully thought it out in advance. 

Your thoughts running on ahead will keep 
your body moving and give you the air of 
a very busy man. Looking on everything 
from a new point of view you will see ail 
objects and circumstances at fresh angles 
and in new classifications. To you the world 
henceforth will be divided into those who are 
looking backward and those who are looking 
forward, and you will soon find yourself forg- 
ing out ahead and tending away from your 
retrospective neighbors. 

Progress begins in the mind and is based 
on the adoption and practice of sound ideas. 
The future always stands smiling and stretch- 
ing out bountiful and inviting hands to 
ambition. 



89 CRISES I1S T LIFE. 

Practical Thinking, 

You will attain much the same results as 
those just stated if you adopt the simple rule 
of thinking only practical thoughts, enter- 
taining only practical desires, musing only 
on practical themes, and employing your 
time solely for practical ends. This will im- 
part the element of unity to all the activities 
of your mind and body, and there is no 
abstract force more effective than unity. If 
you are in great earnest, you will combine 
with the habit of practical thinking the 
kindred habit of knowing no leisure. 

It was a distinguished American who said: 
" Dost thou love life? Then do not squander 
time, for time is the stuff that life is made 
of. ,% And it was a gifted Englishman who 
said: "Time is money. " 

Much time squandered brings regrets, 
much time spent alone brings melancholy, 
but time divided between solitude and society 
brings tranquility. A worthy object and a 
circuit of calls will w banish the gloomiest 
mood. There are three things one can muse 
too much of, indoors, loneliness and idleness. 



CRISES IN LIFE. 40 

These are the incubators of unhappiness. 
In this chapter I prefer to bring into 
prominence only those principles promotive 
of success, for all despondent and unhappy 
states of mind flee before success. 
Potency of Belief* 

Whatever your circumstances and out- 
ward state and condition, it is your belief 
that fixes you there and holds you there. If 
your belief were different your situation 
would be different. If you occupy an humble 
stationary place in society, it is because you 
believe yourself fitted for that, and for no 
other. 

Change your belief with regard to your- 
self and you will very soon find yourself 
changing your course of procedure too. Your 
plans, your undertakings, your feelings, will 
all be different. 

Life will take on a new aspect, and you 
will be delighted with the fresh interest im- 
ported into your experience. Believe your- 
self capable of greater things, of a higher 
station, of a larger sphere, of grander 
achievements. 



41 CRISES IN LIFE. 

The elevation and expansion of one's belief 
in regard to one's self is not an unjustifiable 
exaggeration of personal importance. Look 
around and see how others have stepped 
beyond the ranks of the lowly; they have 
steadily advanced because they have 
steadily believed themselves capable of 
advancing. There is no chance or luck or 
fortune about it; it is merely the result of the 
law by which external things shape them- 
selves in harmony with our thoughts. Thetree 
continues to grow because it cannot doubt, 
and when you cease to doubt yourself, you 
will continue to grow, too. Doubt and un- 
belief arrest growth, and arrested growth is 
always related to unhappiness, as cause to 
effect. Development, not stagnation, is our 
destiny. Cowper say s : ' 'Variety 's the very spice 
of life, that gives it all its flavor ;" but it is 
uninterrupted development that can insure 
variety. Each one has a latent self of infinite 
possibilities underlying his conscious self, 
and it is this latent self which permits of his 
endless evolution. Man is a child of infinity 
and a nursling of the ages. 



CRISES IN LIFE. 42 

Our belief in regard to abstract questions 
and external causes also produce correspond- 
ing effects in our lives. 

Thoughts to Shun, 

There is nothing that will produce a more 
gloomy and unhappy state of mind than inde- 
cision and inaction, when due to distrust or 
fear. Pear in all its forms nullifies the life of 
the soul. He who shrinks from enterprise 
through fear is ail his life long doomed to lit- 
leness, and littleness from this cause means 
profound disappointment with self. Very 
few will be so undiscriminating as to con- 
found fear with a reasonable caution and 
thoughtful prudence. Fear must be seen to 
be a mean and unmanly thing and then erad- 
icated by rule. 

Do what you fear to do must be your rule, 
if you would prosper. Go where your fears 
point, there lies the path to fortune. Beyond 
the boundry line of fear lies your future 
kingdom. Pear points to opportunity, an 
open door without, and talent within. Pear 
denotes the intuitional perception of good 
beyond. It is the way out of darkness into 



48 CRISES IN LIFE. 

light. There is no fear of presumption in 
fear. It is the negative prophecy of hidden 
possibilities. 

The positive of fear is courage. Dare to 
pierce the future with thought then cleave it 
with action. 

Resolutely think out the details of your 
plan, then resolutely work them out. Gloomy 
thoughts are the hobgoblins of fear, and fear 
is the shadow of tomorrow. 

Still, I can but congratulate him who has 
fears; they are the tokens of a latent, but rich 
and fertile brain. " Measure your mind's 
height by the shade it casts. " A man should 
know that there is an objective world corres- 
ponding in quality to the subjective world of 
his emotions, equally bright or equally dull, 
equally rich or equally poor. Let him know 
this and fear will vanish with the knowing of 
it. He will then see that all things are condi- 
tioned by his states of mind; that fears are 
relative and not actual. Let a man read 
aright the testimony of his fears and they 
will become to him books of prophecy and 
oracles of wisdom. All the lower forces of 



CRISES IN LIFE. 44 

his nature he v/ill find transformable into 
higher. They are full of the potency and prom- 
ise of great things. "Fear, " says the sage of 
Concord, "always springs from ignorance." 
Own Achievements. 

Dependence on others is another negative 
state of mind which may be classed among 
the non-producers of interest and happiness. 

This is a subject condition of life and mind 
with which very many are afflicted, and is 
the direct occasion of much secret discom- 
fort. Very much has lately been written on 
the virtue of self-reliance, but the negative 
side of the question, or the misery of intellec- 
tual and other kinds of dependence, has been 
overlooked. Interest is inseparable from the 
creations of our own mind. If we were for- 
ever doomed to gaze only on the achieve- 
ments of others, a humiliating sense of our 
own inferiority would be sure to involve the 
soul. It is very rarely the case that our 
identity with others is so intimate that we 
can feel the pride of a personal interest in 
their performances. 

To create an interest in my own life, I 



CRISES IN LIFE. 

• 

must first create. A fine house and plenty 
of money, all desires gratified and wants 
anticipated (ever y one knows who has had these 
things) are incapable of yielding happiness 
apart from creative activity. 

All idleness is voluntary. There is no 
such thing as enforced idleness. Every one, 
therefore, holds in his own hands a cure for 
melancholy. The rich may work, and the 
poor would work, but both must work to 
escape despondency. There is nothing 
makes a man so unhappy as to see all others 
busy and himself idle. Occupation to be 
stimulating and satisfying to the mind must 
be both creative and remunerative. Self- 
reliance will make a man his own employer 
when he can find no employment from others. 
He who employs himself has a double source 
of pleasure. 

Faith and Self-reliance* 

I have sometimes thought thatthereisacer- 
tain exposition of Bible doctrines which is 
out of harmony with the growth of self- 
reliance in the individual. 

The teaching which I refer to, is that 



CRISES IN LIFE. 46 

which emphasizes dependence on One ex- 
ternal to self for all things included within 
the compass of human needs. 

It is impossible for those who take this 
seriously and sincerely, to develop a high 
degree of self-assertion. We may trust God 
in the performance of duty but not in a state 
of inaction. 

Christ advances the crow to illustrate His 
lesson on divine providence, saying: i% It has 
neither storehouse nor barn, yet God feeds 
it." Observe the crow! How early it rises, 
what an active day it spends. It is on the 
wing much of the time exploring the woods, 
the fields, the valleys, the water courses and 
mountain sides. It acts as if possessing 
an instinctive belief that there is food provid- 
ed for it somewhere, but to be obtained only 
on the condition of diligent search. In the 
morning it flies east to meet the sun, and in 
the evening it flies west to prolong the day. 
In it faith and self-reliance combine. It liter- 
ally seeks first the realm of heaven, and all 
things are added unto it. 

Wherever in the Scriptures faith is taught 



47 CRISES IN LIFE. 

self-reliance must be assumed or we must 
think of God, not as external to us, but as 
identified with us. Man is the efficient cause 
but God is the power within which makes the 
causal agency of man effective, therefore, all 
things are possible to him that believes. 

Self-reliance in its highest conception is 
reliance on God, working in us and with us. 
Inactive dependence is faith misunderstood, 
and the gateway to sorrow and superstition. 
If we conceive aright our relation to God, 
despondency will flee away and life will thrill 
with cheerful action. Human endeavor is 
but the act of embracing standing off ers and 
opportunities. 

The Sphere of Ideals. 

The idea of exertion may have been kept 
very prominently before the mind of the 
reader throughout this chapter, but exertion 
alone will not accomplish development, or 
revive the jaded soul. There must be a men- 
tal ideal to which the soul is lovingly attach- 
ed. 

This should be a clear and definite concep- 
tion of the object to be attained. Moreover, 



CRISES IN LIFE. 48 

all other mental desires and pictures must 
give way to this one. It must be the only 
begotten son, and it must be stimulating and 
something worthy of your noblest powers. 
When an old ideal fails of interest, a new 
ideal must be sought. An ideal is psycho- 
logically necessary. It is the architectural 
design after which the structure of life is 
formed. It is necessary to order and neces- 
sary to success, for thought is the creator 
that guides the constructive hand. Every- 
thing is primarily a thought. It requires the 
inspiration of an ideal to rescue life from the 
pangs of the haphazard. The noblest struct- 
ure in the universe, and one that is to stand 
forever, cannot be built without thoughtful 
design. To the eagerly ambitious it is a 
cheerful reflection, that a mental ideal per- 
sistently held, can never fail of actualization. 
Every event and circumstance will contribute 
to its realization. It tends to fulfillment of 
its own peculiar efficacy. Ideals are desires 
illuminated. 

Subjective and Objective* 
If a man would know the superlative good, 
the highest good thing, the summum bonum, 



49 CRISES IN LIFE. 






he will find it in his subjective self. He will 
find it there and nowhere else. This is the 
original source, the ultimate source and the 
only source of abiding peace and joy. 

This is the Father's house to which the 
vagrant soul gone out in search of rest shall 
return. Here is where God and humanity 
meet. Here is the beginning and here the 
ending of the circuit of our thoughts and 
desires. All things have their primal and 
real existence here, but inexperience knows 
it not. 

With the idealistic philosophy, think of all 
sensible and external things as illusionary, 
and of the images of your mind as the only 
realities. Become contemplative and intro- 
spective. Explore the kingdom which is hid- 
den in the mind. Determine to discover 
Marlow's infinite riches in a little room." 
Write out your passive thoughts; arrest and 
give literal expression to the fleeting phan- 
tasms of the brain. Think of the universe 
and God and religion as within. Dwell on 
this conception, modify and balance it by the 
objective reason and you will find it always 



CRISES IN LIFE. 50 

refreshing and always satisfying to the soul. 
It is practical as well as possible. 

Read the Scriptures and find ample evi- 
dence of it and ample justification for it. 
Pursue the quest until you begin to realize 
that this is the spiritual kingdom which never 
cloys, the source of health and healing, the 
rendezvous of all intelligent being, the divine 
life replete with joy. 

It will require time and persistence to 
reverse the mental consciousness, but when 
achieved the result will be most satisfactory. 
It is to the interior and not to the exterior 
that we must address our thoughts in hope of 
strength and development. The exterior is 
but a creation of the interior. 



It must now be quite clear to the reader 
that there is no need of tolerating weariness. 
Both capacity and provision for enjoyment 
are limitless. The enchantment consists in 
progression. 

To "screw your courage up to the sticking 
place" — the starting place — you must treat 
yourself by affirmation. All good literature 



51 CRISES IN LIFE. 

and great souls are full of it. In the script- 
ure you have read: "Why art thou cast down 
oh my soul! why art thou disquieted within 
me? Hope thou in the Lord for I shall yet 
praise Him, who is the strength of my counte- 
nance and my God." In Shakespeare you 
have read many most eloquent soliloquies, as: 
"I can smile and cry content to that which 
grieves my heart, and wet my cheeks with 
artificial tears and frame my face to all occa- 
sions. Can I do this and can not get a crown? 
Tut, were it further off, I'd pluck it down." 
Let the subjective self cheer and encourage 
the objective self, and stimulate to heroic 
deeds by heroic speech. 

Affirmation is a devotional and not a boast- 
ful mental act; an act partaking of the genius 
of prayer. Treat your mind to courage and 
endeavor, to a clear and steadfast adherence 
to your highest ideal, and summon into activ- 
ity the latent potentialities of your soul. 
From the infinite reserve within treat your- 
self to attempt and attain great things. Like 
the Christ, retire at times to the wilderness 
or mountain side to clarify your mental 



CRISES IN LIFE. 52 

vision, overcome subordinate desire, gen- 
erate spiritual power, gain a fresh hold on 
the salient purpose of your life, and in the 
full master of yourself return to noble 
service. 

I have not mentioned the accession of 
happiness that comes into life through the 
higher development and culture of the bodily 
organs; nor the increase of pleasure derived 
from the keener and profound er use of the 
live senses: nor the complacency that com- 
forts the soul by the conquest of some humil- 
iating appetite (natural or artificial); nor the 
sense of power that delights the mind on 
application of some long-neglected or newly- 
discovered law. 

Some have always been sick and have 
never tried the pleasures of health; some 
ignorant and have never tasted the pleasure 
of knowledge; some immoral and have never 
known the joy of virtue; some secularized and 
have never realized the transports of spiritual 
mindedness. All is available. "It is your 
Father's good pleasure to give you the king- 
dom." You may have outgrown your creed. 



53 CRISES IN LIFE. 

your philosophy, your circumstances, your 
business, your learning or your books, and if 
sadness has settled down on your soul you 
certainly have; but sadness is out of place 
while there are other sciences to study, other 
languages to learn, other fields of thought to 
enter, other virtues to attain and other 
worlds to subdue. 

He who has not educated his natural 
senses untilhe.can perceive the spiritual in the 
material, the subjective in the objective, the 
infinite in the finite, the etherial in the terres- 
trial, eternity in time, and immortality in 
death, has no occasion to say: "Life is void 
of interest." 

These are all paths that lead to freedom 
and daylight; all thoughts and facts wrung 
out of a human experience. 

Do your own thinking and incline to the 
finer and better promptings of your nature, 
and you will avoid a life shattered by sorrows 
and disappointments. 



CHAPTER III. 

Long; Trodden Paths. 

It is one of the teachings of evolution that 
the human individual evolves mental and 
physical traits in the order in which they 
were originally acquired by the race. 

The order of succession, observable in the 
development of the vital and intellectual pro- 
cesses of the civilized human being are 
approximately the following: breathing, sleep- 
ing, drinking, sensibility, voluntary motion, 
individual consciousness, recognition, pre- 
hension, discrimination, choice, speech, loco- 
motion, reason, sympathy and sentiment, 
moral discrimination, sexual appetite, ab- 
stract thinking, religious feeling. 

Seven or eight of these can be regarded 
as constitutional sources of happiness, 
sources of happiness on which man has 
always depended for the maintenance of 



DO CRISES IN LIFE. 

interest throughout life. These are: sleeping 
mg, drinking, eating, physical exercise, 
sexual desire, natural affection, intellectual 
activity, religion. These are the long-trodden 
paths, which, when moderately and wisely 
used, furnish pleasure of sufficient variety 
and intensity to render life not only agree- 
able but to sweeten it with true happiness. 
These eight sources of human enjoyment 
mentioned are either physical, intellectual or 
affectional. The most elementary conception 
of human happiness consists in bringing into 
exercise these three classes of natural capac- 
ities simultaneously or successively. There 
are many means by which all three can find 
varied and pleasant gratification. If human 
beings knew but the wealth of their internal 
and external resources, and how to diversify 
the exercise of their powers, they need never 
spend one unhappy hour. 

While writing this there comes to my 
minda young man. who, for a time, was 
a constant attendant on my services in 
St. Johns, Michigan. He was well endow- 
ed both physically and mentally, and 



CRISES IN LIFE. 56 

also well educated, and I thought him 
a fine young fellow. One evening he lingered 
after service and I came in contact with him 
near the doorway. Shaking hands with him 
I asked how he was. He replied that he was 
not happy, and looked as if some personal 
advice would be welcomed. I was really sur- 
prised to hear him say that he was not happy. 
I said to him: There is some part of your 
hereditary nature that is being neglected. 
You have intellectual and physical exercise 
enough, and your religious nature is not in- 
active. I suspect therefore, that you have con- 
scientiously neglected the social and affection- 
al nature. Did you observe, I said, how these 
other young men obeyed the social instinct as 
they left the church to-night, and how happy 
they appeared? The truth of it was, his 
affectional nature was being starved. He 
was too intellectual to be trifling, too religious 
to be frivolous, and no great compensating 
ambition had yet fired his soul. 

Life is sure to become dull and wearisome 
unless in turn we bring into play all the 
various resources of our nature. 



57 CRISES IN LIFE. 

I. 

"Tired natures sweet restorer, balmy sleep. M 
— Young. 

Sleep is one of the gentlest and kindliest 
of all sources of human pleasure. So refined 
a pleasure do some persons derive from sleep 
that they experience a mild disappointment 
on awaking to the resumption of life in 
the objective world. To them '-heaven's 
gate opens when the world's is shut." Men- 
tal activity goes on all through the sleeping 
hours, and being then of a free and spontan- 
eous character it furnishes pure enjoyment 
to persons of cultured minds, especially 
to those who know the language and signifi- 
cance of dreams. Even when the soul's 
activity has been all beneath the threshold of 
consciousness, or hovering near it, on awak- 
ing we are aware of an indefinable sense of 
mental satisfaction. Many persons possess 
what may be termed a sleeping conscious- 
ness, realizing that what is going on in sleep 
is pure psychical experience, yet believing in 
it as the highest kind of reality; and hav- 
ing the power to perpetuate it in some 



CRISES IN LIFE. 58 

degree, and relish it keenly. This sleeping 
consciousness may be described as a reflect- 
ing self, engaged in observing the operations 
of the intuitional self, yet taking no part 
except that of an interested spectator. Sleep 
is a condition affording an opportunity of 
unrestricted liberty to the play of the mind. 
Therefore our dreams have been called re- 
flections and pictures of our true selves. 
They are at least mental phenomena, profit- 
able as well as interesting to study. 

Before sleep involves the senses there is 
much enjoyment in bodily relaxation and 
rest, and when awaking out of sleep there is 
also pleasure derived from the sense of 
refreshment and rest. 

It is the enjoyment found in the approaches 
to sleep that makes a state of inactivity so 
pleasant and inviting to some. There are 
persons to whom the highest conception of 
vital pleasure is a condition of partial repose. 
To them a dreamy life in which the senses 
become semi-oblivious to the reality of the 
objective world is ever dear. The external 
world to such means only care, anxiety, 



59 CRISES IN LIFE. 

responsibility and other unwelcome states of 
mind, and a dull indifference, a sleepy intoxi- 
cation is a partial escape from it. 

Persons of active temperament derive 
pleasure from the anticipation of rest and 
sleep, for to them it is always accompanied 
by release from intellectual and physical 
strain, and never fails to re-fit the system for 
the resumption of ambition's endeavor. 
"He giveth his beloved sleep. " 

During sleep the conscious mind is inactive 
and the super-conscious mind (the author of 
dreams, the superintendent of the vital 
processes, and the source of intuition) is 
in the ascendency. 

In a state of health, the reign of the super- 
conscious mind is always one of placidity if 
not of pleasure. Reflecting on this fact, per- 
sons of advanced intelligence have adopted 
the habit of inviting the powers of the super- 
conscious mind to share with the objective 
mind in the responsibilities of conscious 
existence, thereby escaping the vulgar wor- 
ries of life. A well-balanced life is the result 
of an active well-proportioned union of the 
two minds. 



CRISES IN LIFE. 60 

The conscious mind serves to keep us 
awake to the external world, to draw con- 
clusions from the facts and experiences of 
life, and supply us with provisional faculties, 
useful, until the control of life is handed over 
to the never-slumbering soul. He, who in his 
waking hours endeavors to maintain life on 
the super-conscious plane, which is the plane 
of faith, enjoys continually a share of the 
advantages of sleep — sleep that "knits up 
the raveird sleave of care." The conscious 
mind represents the human element of the 
soul, and the super-conscious mind the divine. 

To preserve health and good humor and 
keep ourselves fit for the duties and joys of 
life, we must often consort with gentle sleep 
and "steep the senses in forget fulness." 
II. 

"Thou shalt make them to drink of the river of 
tJnj pleasures." — David. 

This suggests another of the long-trodden 
paths of pleasure, and one of the three bodily 
appetites. 

Drinking is one of the first of infant 
pleasures and one of the last of human com- 



61 CRISES IN LIFE. 

forts. The desire for drink, wisely satisfied, 
furnishes unmixed enjoyment through the 
whole term of life. 

The soldier on the weary march, the mari- 
ner adrift on the briny sea, and the traveler 
lost in the arid desert, emphasize the joy, the 
exquisite joy of quenching thirst. 

Pure water filtered through the sands 
and subsoils, and gushing from the well 
springs of the earth, is nature's universal 
provision for human thirst. It is sweet to 
drink from the crystal fountain, and sweet 
also to drink from the flavored cups of the 
yellow orange or the milk white cocoanut. 

The clustering grape, the mellow peach, 
the luscious strawberry, the purple plum, 
and the red-cheeked apple, are bottle foun- 
tains filled from the earth and sky. Flavored 
with the summer's sunshine and fragrant 
with the odors of paradise; how delicious to 
mankind are the fruits of the orchard and 
garden. Whether expressed from the sum- 
mer's fruits, drawn from the clouds, or lifted 
from the earth, water is precious to the 
thirsty soul. 



CRISES IN LIFE. 62 

It is the vehicle which conveys all the 
nutritive elements of food throughout the 
labyrinth of our physical structure, and 
returning drains away the waste. It is the 
element which decorates the heaven with 
clouds, the landscape with streams and cas- 
cades, and the grass with spangled dew. It 
thrills the soul with beauty and refreshes 
the body without and within. 

How spiritual a thing pure water seems. 
Little wonder that it should have been em- 
ployed by prophet and poet to illustrate 
immortality, joy and truth. 

It is an easy transition for the mind to 
make from the drinking of pure water to the 
drinking of divine knowledge. 

In the desire for pleasure this appetite 
of the body need not and should not" be car- 
ried to excess. Elevated into the desire of 
the regenerated mind, two diverse streams 
of pleasure would then flow to quench the 
infinite thirst of the infinite soul. 

The highly enlighted mind perceives the 
appetite of the body and the desire of the 
soul to be fundamentally one. All our efforts 



bo CRISES IN LIFE. 

for the refinement of eating and drinking 
testify to the depth and universality of this 
belief. "Our bodies are but our conscious 
intelligencies. " 

The appetite of the drunkard is desire 
misapplied. Change the direction of the 
drunkard's desire and turn it to the pursuit 
of knowledge and truth, the acquisition of 
personal attainments, or the generous thirst 
for public good, and there is no mightier 
force in the world than his. 

Give him the suggestion that the desire in 
itself is not wrong, but perverted in its use, 
and if he has ambition, the perception of this 
fact will heal him. He will proceed to apply 
this mis-directed energy to the achievement 
of noble ends. How almighty the desire that 
sells the clothes from the body, that pawns 
the household goods and even barters the 
wretched corpse for the means of gratifica- 
tion. It is a passion to be envied. 

The reader will recall the occasion when 
Christ speaking of the use and abuse of our 
desires, said: "If the light that is within 
thee be darkness, how great is that darkness. " 



CRISES IN LIFE. 64 

Assuming that men have the power to give 
right direction to perverted energy, Christ 
exclaims: "If any man thirst, let him come 
unto me and drink. " 

III. 

"Now good digestion wait on appetite, and 
health on both.'' — Macbeth. 

From the earliest to the latest years of 
life, eating is a never-failing source of pleas - 
ure. Not only the act of consuming food 
gives pleasure, but also the task of obtaining, 
preparing and presenting it. We eat solids 
for the purpose of extracting the nutritive 
juices they contain and securing the benefits 
and sensations of flavor, distention and bulk. 
There is a fine, almost spiritual quality about 
the flavor of food, which redeems it and the 
act of eating from unmitigated grossness. 

Much of the possible pleasure that attends 
the gratification of this appetite is lost to 
persons who paralize the nerves of taste by 
alcohol, tobacco and pungent accessories of 
the table. When the delicate nerves are 
destroyed which transmit to the brain im- 



65 CRISES IN LIFE. 

pressions of taste, then eating becomes hur- 
ried or mechanical, and one of the staple 
pleasures of life is gone. 

To thoroughly enjoy eating, one must have 
wholesome food, retaining its proper flavor 
when cooked, presented attractively and 
eaten leisurely, with thoughts of the good- 
ness of Him who giveth all. 

Public dinners are never conducive to 
good digestion. Eat where you have uninter- 
rupted opportunity to enjoy your meal, 
unmolested by foreign topics and alien 
minds. " Unquiet meals make ill digestions." 

It is false etiquette that forbids one 
delight in the food he eats. Indeed, the pro- 
cess of eating should be accompanied by a 
distinct intention on the part of the conscious 
mind, that the food consumed give health 
and vigor to the body or that it agree with 
you and do you good. 

This will act as a suggestion to the super- 
conscious mind, which beyond the point of 
mastication, carries on all the processes of 
digestion and nutrition. 

If the conscious mind performs its duty 



CRISES IN LIFE. 66 

faithfully and selects wholesome food, masti- 
cates and salivates it thoroughly, and trans- 
mits it to the stomach charged with intelli- 
gent intention, the super-conscious mind can 
be trusted to perform its part to the point of 
infallability. It is not the stomach, the liver, 
the intestines and cognate organs, that need 
be treated for the ills of a faulty alimentation, 
but the mind that selects, prepares, and 
transmits the food. The responsibility lies 
outside the province of the super-conscious 
mind. Better judgment, better cooking, bet- 
ter self-control and better mastication would 
obviate a very large percentage of the miser- 
ies connected with the nutritive functions of 
the body. 

A degree of hunger is necessary to the 
highest enjoyment of eating, for as the Scotch 

i say: "hunger is the best ketchen"(appetitizer). 
Custom prescribes three meals per day, and 

• many people with limited powers of digestion 
by attempting to conform to this custom, not 

& only deprive themselves of the relish of hun- 
ger, but invite dyspepsia, constipation, and 
liver complaint, with all their gloomy hor- 



67 CRISES IN LIFE. 

rors. With some people it will not mend 
matters even to eat lightly three times a day. 
Two substantial meals daily are all that most 
persons can eat with enjoyment. Those who 
cannot should apply for therapeutic treat- 
ment. It may be very inconvenient, neverthe- 
less, persons who cannot conform to the dietary 
habits of those about them with impunity, 
should adopt habits of eating suited to the 
peculiarities of their taste and constitution. 
It is worth while, for not only is eating one of 
the cardinal enjoyments of life, but when this 
enjoyment is gone, enjoyment from all other 
sources is greatly impaired. 

Whenever any organ, as the stomach for 
example, controlled by the sympathetic ner- 
vous system, becomes affected, all other 
organs responsive to the sympathetic system 
simultaneously suffer with it. When the 
stomach is out of order, the entire digestive 
economy is demoralized, and what was meant 
by nature for a continual source of pleasure 
has become through abuse a chronic source 
of pain. 

This evil usually results from one of three 



CRISES IN LIFE. 68 

causes: First, a failure to distinguish be- 
tween hunger and craving; second, extreme 
politeness in sacrificing yourself to the 
dietary habits of those about you; third, 
determination to satisfy hunger and appetite 
by food alone. 

Appetite is a psycho-physical condition and 
can be mentally satisfied. There are still a 
few who have to learn the truth of the 
proverb: "Man shall not live by bread 
alone." Intellectual occupation appeases 
hunger. The body is but the mind material- 
ized, and all our bodily appetites are semi- 
mental states. 

If these appetites are going to remain 
with us forever as imperishable sources of 
pleasure, it might be prudent to educate 
them in a relish for things immaterial. 

IV. 

"Endless torments dwell about thee, yet who 
would live and live xoithout thee. " — Addison. 

Suspending for a moment all excessive 
modesty, I come in the order of logical suc- 
cession to treat of the sexual appetite. 



69 CRISES IN LIFE. 

Whether it be regarded as an emotion native 
to the mind, or an impulse originating in the 
body, no one will deny that the feelings 
attendant on the exercise of this appetite 
are of a pleasurable nature, and contribute 
much to the sum total of human enjoyment. 

The sexual appetite is, in fact, the strong- 
est and most demonstrative of all human 
desires. All the energies of the body and 
faculties of the mind are tributary to it. It 
yields enjoyment whether repressed or ex- 
pressed. Anticipation, restraint, fulfillment 
are all alike states of pleasure. The highest 
degree of both mental and physical vigor is 
attained when its tension is the greatest, and 
the lowest w T hen its activity approaches the 
unappreciable. 

The uses of this desire are manifold. It 
may be converted into the ecstacy of a luxur- 
ious moment, or expended in long-sustained 
endeavor in any field of human industry 
whatever. It may beget offspring, create 
literature, invent appliances, conquer obsta- 
cles, achieve fame, originate plans, cure dis- 
ease, govern states, control armies, etc. 



CRISES IN LIFE. 70 

There is no limit to the utility and adaptabili- 
ty of this most transformable of all desires. 
It is one with life itself and throbs with the 
impetuosity of creative power. It has its 
seat in the regenerative centers of both the. 
mental and physical life, and the entire 
organism is dominated by it. 

Few have found out that this desire has 
such universal adaptability, and fewer, still, 
have utilized this knowledge. Its ordained 
function is to beget, to produce and repro- 
duce. Through it man can beget his species, 
his noblest thoughts and his highest en- 
deavors. It is a fund and fountain of life 
from which issue, intellectual triumph and 
industrial achievement, the riches of success, 
and the fruits of benevolence. 

Through the potency of this desire the 
wisdom and power of man reach their high- 
est splendor, but through it also the weak- 
ness and folly of man reach their lowest 
depths. Expressed in unrestrained indul- 
gence it leads to the cancellation of the ines- 
timable pleasures of health and disqualifies 
for participation in all the milder joys of 



71 CRISES IN LIFE. 

life. It is a perennial source of pleasure only 
when not gratified exclusively in sexual 
ways. 

Those who have the sexual desire in tu- 
multuous force, possess a power, which if 
prudently employed, would gain for theni 
in the eager competition of life, the rank and 
superiority which human ambition craves. 
No one will accomplish much until he learns to 
transmit his surplus vitality into cereberal 
energy, and no one will do aught but smile at 
this proposition, from whose life the element 
of earnest intensity is absent. 

Life must be taken with something like 
religious seriousness before its best and 
noblest ends are attained. 

The method of accomplishing the com- 
plete results above alluded to, is by an act of 
mental intention in harmony with ascertained 
laws of the mind. This may be obscure to 
many, but the reader knows where to obtain 
instruction. 

The sexual desire is the fountain of love, 
love is the life of woman and woman is the joy 
of man. If, as the poet says: "There's noth- 



CRISES IN LIFE. 72 

ing half so sweet in life as love's young 
dream," then let ' 'those love now who never 
loved before, and let those who always loved, 
now love the more." If every capacity of 
human nature for pleasure should perish 
save love, life would be pleasant still. 

Love is a long-trodden path which leads 
winding among all the brightest and tender- 
est scenes of life. It has rendered sacred 
many a charming spot, and hallowed many a 
summer's day. It is a path which winds 
through the green fields, along the margin of 
the upland stream, and lingers with sing- 
ing birds in the seclusion of the shady grove. 
It is the quiet lane between the sweet-scented 
hedgerows, the flower-bordered alley that 
leads to the vine-clad arbor in the garden. 

The path of love leads everywhere and 
everywhere makes dear. " Until I truly lov- 
ed I was alone." 

V. 

"My mind to me a kingdom is. " — Sir Edward 

Dyer. 

Intellectual activity is a constitutional 
source of pleasure which affords no small 



73 CRISES IN LIFE. 

measure of the total amount of enjoyment 
falling to the lot of an individual. To many, 
indeed, it furnishes by far the larger propor- 
tion. The study of some intricate problem, 
the mastery of some profound philosophy, 
the designing and executing of some difficult 
undertaking, are to persons of intellectual 
temperament a source of greater enjoyment 
than all other things. 

There are few persons, though they may 
not delight in purely intellectual effort of 
their own, who cannot find pleasure in the 
mental creations of others. A story, a paint- 
ing, a musical composition, a piece of statu- 
ary, a poem, a song, a speech, a display of 
architecture, elicit from almost everyone 
some degree of admiration, and admiration is 
always a token of intellectual enjoyment. It 
is the recognition of personal authorship in 
the works of nature that occasions our high- 
est enjoyment in the contemplation of them. 

There are none who are engaged in 
mechanical and constructive pursuits but 
take genuine pleasure in the productions of 
their own ingenuity and skill. If it were not 



CRISES IN LIFE. 74 

for this source of enjoyment, the housekeep- 
er, the artisan, the farmer, the teacher, the 
designer, the manufacturer, and a hundred 
other classes, would find very little satisfac- 
tion in their industrial pursuits. It is ques- 
tionable, indeed, whether without this incen- 
tive to industry and production, progress or 
even civilization would be possible. When 
the great Creator had formed the world, he 
beheld all things and pronounced them good. 

Next to enjoyment obtained from intel- 
lectual activity is that obtained from intel- 
lectual growth. Intellectual growth means 
increase of intellectual power, and there is no 
pleasure so sweet and gratifying, and none 
more divine than soul power. It is this that 
we must cultivate in the present state of 
existence if we would make a fair beginning 
in a disembodied state, and this also that we 
must cultivate if we would even comprehend 
what a pure psychic existence is. "Mind 
unemployed is mind unenjoyed." 

Mental philosophers enumerate five active 
powers of the mind which inay be classed 
among intellectual sources of enjoyment. 



75 CRISES IN LIFE. 

These are: The desire for knowledge, the 
desire for society, the desire for superiority, 
the desire to excel and the desire for power. 

The youth attending school or college, and 
the scientist in his researches, taste the 
pleasure of the first desire. 

The happiness obtained from the fulfill- 
ment of the desire for society is so universal- 
ly sought and acknowledged, that I may pass 
it without further remark except to say that 
often when all joy seems exhausted and life is 
stripped bare, a revival of interest is almost 
sure to attend a resort to appreciative and 
congenial society. 

The desire for superiority affords pleasure 
to those who delight in external grandeur. 
Handsome dwellings, fine carriages, rich 
attire, costly and beautiful surroundings, like 
mercy are twice blessed, blessed in the artis- 
tic pleasure they afford and blessed in the 
admiration they evoke from others. It is 
not the owner's fault that instead of evoking 
admiration they sometimes provoke envy. 

The desire to excel is more personal and 
expresses itself in competitive strife. It 



CRISES IN LIFE. 76 

yields pleasure in every manly contest, in all 
generous and good-natured rivalry in busi- 
ness, politics, society, intellect. This is the 
main source of human ambition, and the spur 
to half the activity of life. 

The desire for power exhibits itself in 
everyone, and is the mightiest factor of all 
in forwarding national and individual develop- 
ment. When attained there is no possession 
delights the owner more. The desire for 
power explains the eager struggle for riches, 
office and authority. "We love and live in 
power. " Man is a candidate for the absolute. 
VI. 

" The soul has this proof of its divinity, that 
divine things delight it." — Seneca. 

There is an element of pleasure in religion 
which cannot be catalogued among the joys of 
mere intellectual activity, an element of 
pleasure peculiar to the spiritual nature and 
the exalted life of the soul. 

Religion occupies a unique place among 
the resources of human happiness. When all 
other means fail, and the sensible world 
appears to the soul but a vanishing delusion. 



77 CRISES IN LIFE. 

'tis religion alone that can cheer and sustain 
the mind. To have been thrilled by the power 
of religious emotion, is an experience that can 
never be forgotten, an impression that can 
never be totally erased. Religion comforts 
the mind amid all the changing scenes of 
earthly life and rejoices the heart with the 
prospect of everlasting bliss. It secures to 
the soul the inestimable joys of righteous- 
ness, virtue, piety and peace. It multiplies 
the blessings of those who are already bless- 
ed and compensates the loss of worldly com- 
fort to the afflicted. It is a never-failing 
source of happiness to the human mind and 
without it, as the Scriptures say: Man is 
lost. 

It might be claimed that Christianity is a 
divine remedy for all melancholic and suicidal 
tendencies, and why not, therefore, close the 
discussion of the question at this point and 
dismiss it as finally and satisfactorily set- 
tled. I answer: That the current interpreta- 
tion given to Christianity does not prevent 
gloomy and desolate states of mind. Many of 
the teachings of the Church have a positively 



CRISES IN LIFE. 78 

depressing influence. One only needs to 
observe the heavy countenances of the peo- 
ple as they pass out of the Church to be con- 
vinced of this fact. If there is any other 
proof required, it is to have been a minister 
one's self and have felt the sinking, painful 
impression left after preaching doctrines of 
dejection. 

God is held too far off, Christ is swathed 
in too much dogma, the gospel is made too 
systematic, faith too theoretic and prayer too 
hypothetic. 

We are taught to trust providence though 
providence should fail to respond; objective 
results are assured though subjective are 
only obtained; faith in a super-natural cause 
is emphasized to the discouragement of per- 
sonal endeavor; the cultivation of self-reliance 
is neglected for trust in an external power; 
thinking and acting on the basis of reason is 
abandoned for emotional direction; illogical 
teachings and teachings contrary to experience 
baffle and disconcert the mind. These could 
all be avoided and yet Christianity be left in- 
tact. The identity of man with the universal 



79 CRISES IN LIFE. 

intelligence and of all life with universal life, 
is the only view which will impart a happy 
and harmonious transformation to the creeds 
of the Christian Church. 

Though it will render antiquated some of 
the cherished doctrines of the Church, and 
retire to oblivion tons of theological litera- 
ture, ministers will in time give up preach- 
ing the weakness and worthlessness of man 
and proclaim the greatness and diviness of 
his nature. The debasive style of preaching 
is a relic of the days of ecclesiastical domina- 
tion, when the clergy, ambitious of power, 
preached such doctrines as would serve to 
abase and subdue the people and keep them 
submissive to their control. 

It is better to tell men that they are the 
offspring of God than that they are worms of 
the dust, and under the curse and condemna- 
tion of God. Though a man be a prodigal, he 
is still a son and an object of the Father's 
love. Tell men of the nobility of their 
origin and of the grandeur of their slumber- 
ing selves, and tell them, too, how Christ 
knowing the inherent greatness of human 



CRISES IN LIFE. 80 

nature, calls on men to "awake" and to ''rise 
from the dead," and believing in their own 
latent powers and possibilities, possess the 
kingdom. E'er long the influence of the facts 
of scientific evolution will compel Christian 
teachers to discover in the Scriptures more 
cheerful ideas and give a happier construc- 
tion to truth. 

The history of the future, as concerns the 
relations of religion and science will be a 
repetition of the past; the dogmas of Church 
will yield to the revelations and conclusions 
of science. When the evolution of a right- 
eous character and spiritual nature are 
seen to be from within; when it is taught that 
the voice of Scripture appeals to man on the 
assumption of the latent riches and resources 
of his nature; when God and heaven and all 
the dress and circumstance of religion are 
located with the soul, the deathblow will have 
been given to human sorrow and despair, as 
well as to the imaginary conflict between 
science and religion. 

It is the didactic habit of externalizing 
God and truth and love and mercy and joy, 



81 CRISES IN LIFE. 

and all the gracious agencies and elements of 
religion, that keeps it out of reach, and makes 
it disappointing and distracting when its joys 
and consolations are [most required. It is 
the externality of other things that makes 
them vain and disappointing. Religion to be 
an unfailing source of happiness and a sure 
dependence in the time of need must be con- 
ceived to be, and held to be, and delighted in, 
as subjective, as it is in fact. 

I repeat as my firm conviction, that relig- 
ion to be a source of real happiness to man 
must disclose to him the inherent ability 
resident within him, and this can only be 
done by recognizing and teaching the com- 
munity and identity of all being. This is the 
kingdom of God within, out of which the 
evolution of the higher life goes on. 

The whole discussion terminates in the 
bold logical extravagance, that as God knows 
no mood of disconsolation and no emotion of 
fear, so neither can man, when he properly 
understands his lineal and necessary relation 
to God. 



CRISES IN LIFE. 82 

VII. 

" Affection is the broadest basis of a good life.'' 
■ — George Elliot. 

The presentation of the natural and spirit- 
ual affections follows very fittingly in the 
train of religion and still more fittingly ends 
the catalogue and the discussion. 

The love of home and country and friends; 
the love of children and wife and parents; the 
love of the true, the beautiful and the good; 
the love of God and the works of God, are all 
affections inate to man, and what oceans of 
pleasure they suggest. Love is the tender 
bond that unites us to all persons, places and 
objects; it is the warm glow that invests the 
image of all we admire. 

Man is born of love and born to love; love 
is the very principle of existence. " Not to 
know love is not to live." 

Whether expended on us or expended by 
us, love is pleasant. Love is possession; we 
own all we love. We are most divine when 
we love most. "Affection never was wast- 
ed." "The test of affection is a tear. " Love 



83 CRISES IN LIFE. 

is beauty enveloped in emotion. Love is in- 
telligence linked to feeling. Love is God and 
God is love. 

With so many to love us and so many to 
love, how can we ever be sad, unless too 
much love make us sad? Joy is in love and 
while lovable or capable of love, we need not 
want for joy. Faith and hope are the sister 
allies of love, and the heart must love to have 
the three. 

Cherish love, for if love could die the soul 
would expire. Who has not heard of love for 
country, child or friend or God, inviting 
death in hope of immortality of love; but in 
despair of love, alas, how many a hand in- 
flicts on self the mortal blow. "It is the 
greatest woe of life to feel all feeling die. " 

Love self and love self much, for the love 
of self is the gospel measure of love for 
others. Love self still more, do not be 
afraid to love self too much, for the ample 
love of self is love of God; God is thy greater 
self. Vanity, you need not fear, pride has no 
place where God is recognized. 

Love is nature's balm for the soul's dis- 



CRISES IN LIFE. 84 

tress. That heart can never be unhappy that 
drinks ' 'sweet water from affection's spring/' 
One by one. the affections expand, like the 
fragrant blossoms on the raceme, until beau- 
tiful with form and glorious with perfection 
of color. Love of mother and father is suc- 
ceeded by love of brother and sister, followed 
by love of home and friends, love of country 
and kindred, love of God and humanity. 

Amid these stars of the first magnitude, 
appear constellations of the lesser affections, 
which sparkle and glow in the interspaces 
until the sky of the soul is all on fire with 
points of love. The earth blossoms and the 
firmament shines with images of love. 
Whether love looks up or down, it sees noth- 
ing but stars and flowers. Myself, my en- 
vironment, my horizon and zenith, love alone 
makes fair. 

The greatest contribution made to litera- 
ture on this theme, is contained in the con- 
summate saying: ' -Love never faileth." One 
at rare intervals catches a passing glimpse 
of this unfailing love in some devoted mother, 
wife or friend, or in the radiance of some 



85 CRISES IN LIFE. 

highly cultured soul. How fine the emotion 
it awakens. How beautiful the image it 
creates. 

There is only one thing more grateful to 
the human soul than to be trusted, and that 
is, to be loved. Trust prepares the way for 
the advent and occupation of love. 



As I review the riches of human nature 
and think of the many wellsprings of happi- 
ness within the soul, I marvel at four 
things: First, that unhappiness for a single 
day should be the experience of one human be- 
ing; second, that any one should need to carry 
one capacity for pleasure to excess; third, 
that any one should appeal exclusively to the 
lower propensities for pleasure; fourth, that 
man should have ever thought of cultivating 
artificial appetites. 

There being so many exquisite joys among 
the sunny tree tops where the crimson bees 
roam and the kinglets build their nests, why 
should the soul stay in the gloomy depths of 
the forest. 

When an individual of the race is in a 



CRISES IN LIFE. 86 

normal and healthy condition all the opera- 
tions of his body and mind and all the activi- 
ties and processes of his life are attended by 
pleasurable feelings; his entire organism is an 
instrument of pleasure. Happiness is the 
offspring of a body in all its functions unim- 
paired and a mind sound and uncorrupted. 
To one endowed with physical health and 
intellectual sanity, life can never be exhaust- 
ed of interest or the mind reach a state of 
gloomy disenchantment. 

It is never necessary to get intoxicated, 
to file a bill for divorce, to buy a pistol with 
suicidal intent, to join a gambling club, to 
violate the marriage contract, to swallow 
narcotic drugs, to sell out or burn out, to 
desert home and family, to take to vile litera- 
ture, etc., to make life interesting. 

A person must not be so unobserving 
as to confound physical weariness with loss 
of capacity for pleasure, or mental exhaustion 
with failure and discouragement, or hunger 
with a degenerate disposition, or loneliness 
with a morbid temperament, or postpone- 
ment with defeat. 



87 CRISES IN LIFE. 

It is almost humorous to think of some of 
the trivial causes of despondency. The mind 
can always be assumed to be whole though 
the brain be weary and distressed. Impor- 
tant opinions must never be formed, nor 
important action taken in a state of fatigue 
or melancholy. 

Negative conditions of the body and mind 
are but signs of capacity for pleasure in rest 
or recreation. In extreme negative* states, 
when all affection seems to have dried up and 
all enjoyment withered, never conclude that 
you have exhausted the resources of your 
nature. You are but ripening for a larger 
and grander experience. The winter of dis- 
content precedes the summer of delight. 
When you become tired of indulgence appeal 
to virtue, for "virtue though in rags will 
keep you warm." and "virtue alone is happi- 
ness below." 

Few, if any, of the staple pleasures of life 
depend on riches, and certainly none of the 
finest and purest and best do. The pleasures 
of religion and art and intellect and society 
and health and exercise are free to all. 



CRISES IN LIFE. 88 

The secret of happiness is always in the 
state and contents of the mind and never in 
external circumstances. Our circumstances 
correspond to our thoughts and beliefs. He 
that thinketh health and happiness and pros- 
perity, shall have these as the heritage of his 
life; and he that thinketh goodness, virtue, 
truth and love, shall have these, also, to 
beautify his days and crown his years. 

The belief which more than all else saves 
a man from lapsing into despondency, is 
belief in his own ability to overcome or 
accomplish anything he desires. Let him get 
rid of the idea that he is weak and worthless, 
and his days, not only of misery, but of care 
and anxiety are passed forever. 

If some unexpected and appalling death 
or disaster overtakes you and the brain and 
nerves heave and tremble with a tumult of 
jarring vibrations, wait! The mind is intact 
though the brain is bruised. Wait! The soul 
is self-restorative, and will again, when the 
organ of utterance is healed, assert its inher- 
ent nobility and joy. 

What pathetic tragedies have resulted 
through mistaking the commotion of the 
LofC. 



89 CRISES IN LIFE. ' 

brain for the misery of the soul. The soul is 
a placid deep. There is an element of pre- 
tense in all human sorrow. The brain may 
be " wedded to calamity" but the mind never. 
With what Christian equanimity a man can 
endure the calamities and sorrows of others. 
In his own health and freedom he beholds the 
good that must ensue, for "sweet are the 
uses of adversity. " Self possessed he recalls 
the fact that day always follows night. 

When the plow-share of sorrow breaks up 
and obliterates some long-trodden path of 
pleasure, it transforms the hardened soil of a 
monotonous life into a green and fertile field. 

Calamity is but blind nature's way of 
interposing to save humanity from the pain 
of stagnation, or the melancholy of routine. 
Calamities are but events misunderstood. 

" Noble souls through dust and heat, 
Rise from disaster and defeat." 

There is many a better thing to do than 
to die. 

FINIS. 



Jan - 17 1901" 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



021 899 043 5 



; 



